What goes up might come down

Many years ago I was lucky enough to be given a copy of a tape by a guy named Dave Gunson. Dave was an air traffic controller at East Midlands airport and had made a bit of a niche for himself as an after-dinner speaker.

This particular tape was a speech he gave to a room full of bankers and it talks about his role as an air traffic controller.

Sounds boring, right? Wrong! This is one of the funniest recordings I've heard in a long while and is definitely one of the best as far as aviation is concerned.

He'll talk about working with French Air Traffic Control. ("Non!'), how airports make their money ("You can make as many take-offs as you want free of charge. We'll only charge you for the landings"), flying the Concorde ("It stretches nearly a foot every time we go supersonic. Its a good job it shrinks back otherwise we'd have the longest plane you've every seen after a couple of months"), and many other aviation themed topics.

Amazon are selling it here in the UK What Goes Up Might Come Down!

You could also check out the list of books I recommend, including some great ones by Rod Machado the voice of Microsoft's Flight Simulator and a genuine aviation humourist himself.